I have just started to play in Dan and Dave's Special.
In the welcome mail from Havok it was written :

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No queue stuffing. It's a cheap tactic that exploits the limitations of the VGA Planets game design. It is not a legitimate military or political tactic. If you're caught doing it you'll be disqualified and removed from said game.
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what exactly is the meaning of it ?
building SDSFs or other cheap ships to fill the queue?
that is written in some stratey guides.

Building useless ships for the purpose of filling ship slots until 500 ships are built. These ships then tend to be recycled for PBP. (So if you end up with many PBP without battle Havok will notice this and well bad things will happen )

Recycling still gives PBP's(it shouldn't), Colonizing your ship no longer gives PBP's.
Really no difference between the two mission. The reward for Recylcing should be the ship componets, and freeing up a build slot.
Nothing worse than some slot filler in the game, that gets smacked by a nasty ION storm, or Attacked by a race, that ends up getting a bunch of PBP's for next to nothing.

Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference.
The US Marines don't have that problem.
President Ronald Reagan

im guilty of this to a small extent..i will do it at newer sb's that cant afford better ships..but while queue stuffing has some advantages(better to build a junk ship then have your enemy build a new capital ship)..i always try to upgrade most of my sb's to build useful ships asap! id rather have that capital ship then a small freighter..
and even without havok stepping in if someone gets outta line most players will target ppl that do it also..if u know your neighbor is doin it one cloaker or swift attack will kill off a ton of ships! cause they are all junk!
bottom line...do it at your own risk!

I don't know how you enforce a "no que stuffing" rule. I can think of a legitimate reason to build crappy ships for just about every race. For example, it makes perfect sense for the Lizards to stuff the que with cheap, tech 1 everything ships with 1 beam. They make perfect hissers.
Likewise, it makes perfect sense for the Privateer to build medium freighters with Tech 1 engines and then tow them around with MBRs.
Of course, any race that can build a hyperjumper should absolutely stuff the que with them at any opportunity. Better to build a low-tech HYP ship than no ship at all. Likewise, any race that can build terraformers will benefit from stuffing the que with terraformers. Again, better to build a crappy terraformer than nothing at all. At least it has a use.
So, how is Havok supposed to decide what the definition of "useless" is?
Even a medium freighter with tech 1 engines has a use. Tow it along behind an LDSF for the extra 200 cargo space.

I agree with you Raven2, that those examples you gave are "useful" ships. definitely the low-cost hissers as I've built in the past. but then there was this tiny little Ion-Storm
S..t, all gone.
I think the main queue stuffing thing is a SDSF with W1, which is the cheapest and useless ship I know any base should be able to build.
If let's say 100 of them are built (from all races), we have only 400 valuable ships left. Only 80%.
But also I see the difficults for Havok to decide it.

I was only interested because I've read the welcome mail (maybe for the first time completely) and I couldn't remember that restriction.

I am always amazed how FEW so called "useful" hulls get built in Phost games were PBP's aren't used. I have no problems with the ships anybody wants to build. I have a problem with Recycling giving a stuffer or stuffers in a game, more advantage than those that are actually out and about conquering, in a game of Domination. Recycling should be treated just like colonize, with the only added bonus of keeping the built parts engines/Beams/Torps and freeing open a ship slot at the players moment of choice.

Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference.
The US Marines don't have that problem.
President Ronald Reagan

What some of you forget is that some players need to build SDSF due to heavily fighting with perhaps 2+ players simultaniusly.

If such a player have only 10.000 income he can not afford to buy mines/torpedoes/fighters upgrade bases in front of que and build good ships for PBP earned.

Also he want to make sure that his enemies don´t build 2+ times as many ships as him, in which case a large alliance will always win. So he build SDSF and if he is good at killing enemies he will end up with a lot of SDSF. When he can afford it he might build a ship usefull for fighting.

His main goal is that no one build ships for free, all ships need to be build for PBP. Making him and his enemies fight more equal since they all will need to win battles to get new ships.

You fight in VGA for the 500 planets and 500 shipslots. The last being the most importent. If you run out of ships defeat is usually just being a matter of time.

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Also those races with weak main capital ships like facist will have a natural interest in the que not moving, since they need 3 or 4 to counter a bioside or gorbie so if building a few SDSF can prevent a Gorbie comming there way it make sence building them.

It all depends how the game progrees who want to stop the cue from running, but usually no one stop the que for fun.

There is no point in accusing players building SDSF for cuestuffing more than a rebel building "usefull" falcons or lizard hissers. There purpose might be the same, stop the cue from running. Naturally the falcon/hissers is better since they can serve other functions simultaniusly. Allowing Rebel/Lizard to cuestuff but not facist don´t make sence as facist already is the weakest race.

Captain Blood wrote:
His main goal is that no one build ships for free, all ships need to be build for PBP. Making him and his enemies fight more equal since they all will need to win battles to get new ships.

You fight in VGA for the 500 planets and 500 shipslots. The last being the most importent. If you run out of ships defeat is usually just being a matter of time.

Building ships to slow the ship que down, is different than building ships, to self reward yourself, with free PBP, that have nothing to do with combat. The Reward for building some "useful" ships and then recycling them, are the minerals and ship components, and opening up a ship slot at a time, that best suits the player.
PBP's for colonizing(no longer) and Recycling have been turned in to a abuse "Feature" of the game, like many that Tim didn't see coming, some he has fixed over the years and others he hasn't.
PBP's were dropped for colonizing a ship, and should be dropped for recycling a ship, as there are other rewards for Recycling.
1st line of the PBP definition is.
Every time you "DESTROY" 100kt of enemy starship hull you "EARN" 1 PBP.
PBP's should earned and should be a reward to those players, that have lost ships via combat, as they would only get PBP's for WINNING in Battle, and need them replaced, hence the PRIORTY in PBP's.
Priorty ship building, shouldn't be given to players, that avoid combat, never "WIN" a battle, and recycle their ships instead.

Building ships that are component movers, or an extention of another ship, or ships that keep the enemy from building more ships than you and PBP's for recycling are different things.

Long live PHOST's PAL.

Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference.
The US Marines don't have that problem.
President Ronald Reagan

I don't care what the reasons are, if you're building a ship that's not going to be used then you're abusing the game. And by "not going to be used" I mean it's going to sit over your world doing absolutely nothing for 30 turns.

Does ][avok consider building lets say, as many B222 as I can w/x-ray lasers and Star Drive 1 that will do nothing more than orbit planets in case of an incoming attack to kill off fighters as queue stuffing? I'd have no plan to recycle the ships, they'd be for cannon fodder to try to kill as many fighters as possible before the planet has to be attacked.

I understand and agree with not wanting players to build as many SDSF as they can w/Star Drive 1 just to recycle the ships for PBP's. I don't think any player needs to do that. Just manage your economy better and you can build ships that are better - allowing to you win more battles and earn more PBP's.

][avok, would you please let us know what your definition of queue stuffing is so that we can be sure to avoid doing it by accident (although, I think it's something that would have to be intentional)

We can debate what our "personal" preferences and opinions on what is and isn't queue stuffing but really, we should only be asking what ][avok considers queue stuffing as it is he that is kind enough to host for us and his decision is all that matters in the topic.

Naturally it is what Havok says that count, but defining Q-stuffing is extremely hard, since most ships can be usefull under the right circumstances.

I might add that I don´t think ships costing more than 1 PBP to build can q-stuff. It is a total waste of PBP and minerals to build those just to stop the que a SDSF is cheaper and will fill a slot. So those ships might be assumed build for another purpose than q-stuffing.

So we would more or less be debating the SDSF with warp 1 and even those can be usefull for defence as well as attack under the right circumstances. (Not stacked in larger groups but one here and there)

SDSF can be received in two ways, first is to build a lot of starbases for defence and shipbuilding, and set them to build a SDSF until you get minerals or MC to build something better.

More importent if you have 12 starbases and prepare to build 2 main carriers in front of the que you don´t want to priority build those for points in case you enters a large battle. So the remaining 10 starbases will be set to priority build SDSF to prevent an unwelcome build of a large carrier for points.

If you do the above that might leave you with a quite many SDSF and the risk of being accused of q-stuffing if you fight regulary and spend most of your income on fighting your enemies. It is better have fighters/torps on the ships you have than more ships.

Some might argue that those SDSF should be recycled immediate to allow players who don´t fight to build but that will be to reward those who just sit and build or being part of an alliance. Because the larger the alliance or less you fight the better ships you can afford to build!

The main problem is that if you fight heavily or with more than one opponent simultaniusly you will harm yourself by recycling the ships, since you can not afford to build starbases or upgrade starbases in front of the que to match an alliance or those who don´t fight.

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Naturally you can also stuff the que due to having many starbases building SDSF if you don´t fight, but it usually don´t make much sence to do so, since you supposedly build much better than all those players spending time and ressources fighting.

In such a situation you want the que traveling fast. Supposedly some of the fighting players want the que to slow down, so they will try to stuff it.